What knowledge and skills about inquiry should I plan to teach?


Review pp. 35-37 from the Inquiry and the National Standards linked below and answer following questions.


What scientific practices do students need to understand inquiry and be able to do in middle and high school?
  • Be able to identify questions and to hypothesize about scientific investigations
  • Perform scientific methods
  • Revise and add onto hypothesis
  • Be able analyze models and problems
  • Communicate findings with peers and teacher(s)
  • Scientific procedures (variables, hypothesis, procedure, evidence, trials, etc.)
  • "Observation, inference, experimentation"
  • Analyze alternative models and explanations
  • Decipher what results are crucial to the experiment and analysis and which to discard
  • Evaluate own procedure and findings/results

Knowledge Grades 9-12
Skills Grades 9-12
Scientists usually inquire about how physical,
living, or designed systems function.

Scientists conduct investigations for a wide
variety of reasons.

Scientists rely on technology to enhance
the gathering and manipulation of data.

Mathematics is essential in scientific inquiry.
Scientific explanations must adhere to criteria
such as: a proposed explanation must be logically
consistent; it must abide by the rules of evidence;
it must be open to questions an
; and it must be based on historical and current scientific knowledge.
l
Results of scientific inquiry -- new knowledge
and methods --
emerge from different types of investigations
and public communication among scientists.
Identify questions and concepts that guide scientific investigations.

Design and conduct scientific investigations.

Use technology and mathematics to improve investigations
and communications.

Formulate and revise scientific explanations and models using
logic and evidence.

Recognize and analyze alternative explanations and models.

Communicate and defend a scientific argument
Based on the table above, how would you summarize the essential ingredients of classroom-based inquiry?
Students should be able to/have:
  • conceptual skills and science conceptual skills (i.e. devising an experiment)
  • build on old knowledge by taking previously learned concepts and adding them to experimental results
  • be able to understand and 'do' inquiry